The Entertainment Industry Dropped The Ball When The Internet & Napster Hit. What Can It Do Differently In This AI Revolution?
Proactivity In The Face of Daunting Realities Is Essential. We Learned That Last Time.
Google Bard – the ubiquitous search engine’s answer to Microsoft’s breakout ChatGPT – was recently asked what it thinks generative AI is good at. Its verbatim answer – “tasks that require creativity” – an answer that isn’t particularly music to the ears for artists and the entertainment industry. Bard specifically self-identified its top skillsets to be “creating art and music, writing stories and poetry, designing products and services, generating new ideas.” In other words, AI has its sights directly on our creative community across all of its sectors and directly threatens demand for our works and our jobs. Case in point writers and authors. OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, just published a study that concludes that writers are 100% exposed to AI dislocation.
AI already pumps out millions of new songs (Boomy users have created 13+ million songs, reportedly 13% of all recorded music), writes articles, novels and scripts (LinkedIn founder Reid Smith just published his book “Impromptu” solely using GPT-4), churns out endless graphics and art (Midjourney and Stability AI are leaders) and creates full videos based on just a few words of text (Runway’s Gen-2 generative video model is coming soon). Even major artists like David Guetta are using AI to replicate the voices of other major artists like Eminem in their songs (calling him Emin-AI-em). And that’s only four months after OpenAI unleashed ChatGPT into a largely naïve and unsuspecting world. So just imagine how AI will be one year from now. Five? Ten? The truth is we can’t.
But we must try. We, the entertainment industry, must find ways to keep humanity front and center in the art of creativity. Our art, our audiences, and our jobs depend on it. This isn’t some anti-tech rant or form of charity. It’s a fundamental belief that our creative souls cannot be matched by code-churning machines. There is an idiosyncratic and artisanry “craft” to the Arts. Will an AI really know exactly what I will write next? AI art, by definition, is artificial after all (I wrote a full column about this recently titled “To Err Is Human - and That’s What Makes Human Creativity In the Age of AI Divine”).
Knowledge is power, of course, and prioritizing humanity takes proactivity, education and work. Part of the solution is simply to accept our daunting new AI reality – to learn the language of AI, experiment with it, and leverage its immense power to our advantage. For example, AI may help breakdown writer’s block without overtaking the art (and personality) of writing itself.
Equally important is activism. To that end, 40 different entertainment organizations announced a new coalition called the Human Artistry Campaign at SXSW two weeks ago. Its mission is “to ensure artificial intelligence technologies are developed and used in ways that support human culture and artistry – and not ways that replace or erode it.” Notably, just like it did during the last massive technological threat 20+ years ago when rampant Napster-enabled Internet piracy decimated the music industry, the RIAA takes center stage now with AI. It is a founding member of the Human Artistry Campaign.
But this time the RIAA has openly acknowledged the AI tech revolution and is proactively seeking solutions - an approach that is fundamentally different than its reactive “shoot first and ask questions later” mass litigation strategy against peer-to-peer networks and their users. That failed strategy somehow made the music industry the bad guys. Remember the backlash against Metallica for simply condemning the theft of its music? Collective industry activism and education was needed in support of artist livelihoods, but few came to the band’s defense. There’s a lesson to be learned here for these AI times.
Yes, serious copyright infringement issues arise as AI trains itself by “scraping” the vast Internet (I’ve written about this before in TheWrap). But that doesn’t mean that we simply try to litigate AI out of existence. We can’t. While selective litigation certainly can play its part, it was proactive human innovation that ultimately began to show a way out for the music industry. Pioneering companies like Musicmatch (where I served as President & COO) invented better consumer experiences - specifically, easy-to-use on demand streaming - that technology alone couldn’t match and paid the artists and rightsholders to do it.
Steve Jobs and Apple, of course, took the promise of better consumer experiences to entirely new heights with the iPod/iTunes combo pack. Although Apple was the primary beneficiary (as I wrote in a recent column in TheWrap), at least the giant demonstrated that consumers will pay even when they can get things for free. And now 20+ years later, while music piracy certainly hasn’t been eradicated, the industry just announced its 8th consecutive year of growth (9% year over year this time).
Some examples that point the way include Lore Machine (I featured the company in a recent column). It uses its AI to create entirely new StoryScapes (think graphic novels) from creative projects that had been essentially abandoned, paying participating artists in the process. Another is Adobe. The giant creator software platform just launched Firefly, a new non-infringing tool that trains its AI only with its licensed stock images and public domain works. Meanwhile, Flawless’s generative AI changes filmed dialog, opening up a new global audience for international filmmakers by making subtitles a thing of the past.
On the music side, despite flooding the market with millions of artificially created songs (on that note, it was just reported that 38 million tracks on music streaming services received 0 plays last year), AI can also expand demand for songs by actual humans. That’s how new music players should think. Yes, integrate AI. But create entirely new experiences that delight consumers and also pay the artists! Adaptive music is one intriguing concept (assuming an artist is on board). Let’s say you’re a runner. Now you can take your favorite playlist and use AI to re-imagine its tempo to match your running pace. More listening means more royalty payments.
And let’s not forget the obvious opportunities of live music and entertainment, as well as the often overlooked concept of fandom – things still beyond AI’s reach (for now at least), no matter how hard it tries. In the Arts, it’s frequently not just about the creative work itself. Value flows from IRL experiences, real-world access to artists, and the communities created by, and supporting, the artists themselves.
Finally, proactivity means immediate calls for regulation - for basic guardrails - because we certainly can’t bank on the tech industry to regulate itself during this AI arms race where few corporations are rewarded for thoughtfulness, social good, and simple humanity.
The entertainment industry and creative community can continue to thrive in our world of accelerating AI. We gotta believe, and we gotta try. After all, optimism in the face of daunting challenges is a human trait that AI cannot match.
ATTENTION for readers in the entertainment and creative community, I’d like to hear your stories about how you have already used AI (and the experience of it all, including any potentially unique uses) for a future story I plan to write. Please send me a note at peter@creativemedia.biz.
Reach out to me at peter@creativemedia.biz with your perspectives on the subject. And check out Creative Media, my media, entertainment and tech-focused legal services and business advisory firm. I can help you find actionable solutions, and save you big money in the process.